The Stovebolt Site Forums Project Journals Completed Journals 1951 Chevy COE Car Hauler on a P30 Chassis

By this time spring was just around the corner but I still couldn't rely on 50-degree temps at night, so I wasn't comfortable with painting final color yet, but I had a lot of hidden parts I intended to clean up and paint. All of the inner fenders and cowlings from under the hood along with the radiator out of the doner motorhome that I planned on using. I didn't feel the little original one from the COE that was fine for an inline 6 would work for a big block. All I had to do was figure out how to fit it under the hood and not interfere with the tilting cab or the steering and brake linkage.

After I had these pieces all cleaned up and sanded, I hung them up and sprayed them with raddle cans and let them dry for however long it would take in the cool night air.

Over the winter I had picked up the wood car decking for the back deck. It was left over from a project I was working on. I ran a DA sander over it and picked out the best pieces. Then I cut and fit them into place.

I forgot to add this earlier but on one of my "I don't want to sand days" I had installed 1/2" steel plates at the front corners and at the mid points along the side of the rear deck. Also, I installed the 1/4" steel plate a crossed the back end of the deck that would land on the ground when it was tilted. I drilled a 2" hole an inch and a half in from the outside edge of these to be able to hook the straps that hold the car in place to when hauling. I looked at recessing slide tracks into the deck but after checking out what the towing companies were using this was the favored method. I bring this up now because I had to cut and fit the wood decking around these.

After I had it all fitted like I wanted, I numbered all the pieces and pulled them out on the first sunny day and laid them out on sawhorses in the driveway upside down and sprayed them with a black full body stain. As soon as they were dry enough to roll over, I sprayed the sides and the tops with an extra heavy coat of the stain to seal them well. By Dark they had dried pretty well but since it was supposed to be sunny the next day also, I covered them with painters' plastic to keep the dew off and left them in the driveway overnight. First thing the next morning as soon as the sun was hitting them, I uncovered them. By about 1:00 they were dry enough to handle without screwing them up, so I brought them into the shop and laid them in where they went. I bolted them in the following weekend.

I'm having trouble adding photos so I will post the ones for this post next.

Now on to the radiator. COCOE